Apple Pay coming to the UK in July, over 250,000 locations

Apple Pay is arriving in the UK this July. It will launch with 8 banks including HSBC, Natwest, Santander and brands like M&S, Boots and Nandos, to name a few.

Over 250,000 locations will support Apple Pay in the UK right from its launch in July.

Transport For London will also support Apple Pay from launch in the UK allowing for contactless tap to pay travel.

Apple Pay was announced last year with over 2,500 banks supporting it in the US. This autumn Apple Pay will be available to over 50 million card users in the US.

More retailers in the US were announced including Baskin Robbins and even sports arenas for buying merchandise.

Apple is working with Square that will offer a reader for smaller businesses so they can take Apple Pay.

Next month over 1 million locations will accept Apple Pay in the US.

Later this month Pinterest will allow Apple Pay users to buys from stores within the Pinterest app.

Apple wants to kill the wallet so it has renamed Passbook as Wallet. Makes sense.

Mark Barnett, president of MasterCard UK & Ireland said: "MasterCard was first in the world to offer contactless and mobile payment solutions, and Britons have rapidly adopted tap and pay behaviour. In the UK, we make more than 10 contactless payments every second, and on Transport for London alone, commuters tap to pay over one million times a day."